We are going to be reinstalling GrapheneOS on the phones shipping with it.

You can verify the installation integrity via android attestation, which grapheneos uses

Preinstalled GrapheneOS would be funded by state Honeypot operators, or potentially thieves or blackmailers.

If you wish to steal from someone, select from a population of thieves since they won't go to the police (although they may use illegal means to punish you).

Going with the stereotype that people doing illegal things prefer a secure OS (and are not smart enough to pick a safe source).

GrapheneOS is installed with their keys which you can verify, right?

My understanding is that the problem is not on GrapheneOS' side. We need more manufacturers to care and build devices that meet GrapheneOS' requirements.

My hope is that Motorola will be very successful with that. GrapheneOS currently has half a million users and growing. The more users it gets, the more interesting it is for manufacturers to actually consider it.

Google being Google, if Motorola gets a relatively cheap phone to run GrapheneOS (the flagship is quite expensive IMHO), I think people will flock away from Pixels (I definitely will, and I will tell everyone and their dog that they should when they renew their phone).

My current phone is definitely flagship for the time, ~$850, and I will be holding onto it as long as I can because flagships, with headphone jacks, available in the US, are something that just does not exist anymore, and I'm not spending $1500+ to import the cheapest Xperia only to have it barely work on my cell network.

What stopped me from buying flagship phones is the repair costs for phones are far too expensive in relationship to the value of the phone. Results will vary, but waterproofing usually diminishes after a repair.

Sadly there are no more iPhone SE models so this strategy won't work forever. Eventually iOS 18 will stop getting security updates and you'll have to use the increasingly worse newer versions of iOS.

That's also what I buy with Apple now. When I was using Android I'd buy a cheap "Moto G" for maybe $150 brand new. Never understood dropping a grand or more on a mobile phone.

Probably the price for Moto signature is that low only because they're right about to launch the next version.

Nevermind. I just need to remove my SIM card and use a VPN to Spain to get updates. wtf

The selling point of graphene is basically that you get the pixel software experience.

It just puts Google in the same sandbox Google puts everyone else.

Typing this on a pixel running graphene.

What do you mean? It's stock Android. Other manufacturers are putting much more effort into UX in my opinion. Do you mean something else?

I don't think it's actually fabric. It's a "fabric-like polymer coating".

I was also surprised by the banking app experience. After making me verify my identity about 10 times to prove I'm me and not a hacker, they finally let me use it...

I've heard some people had good results by going to their bank branch and demanding them to unblock their phone or they'll close their account. Apparently they have a checkbox to disable phone attestation requirements for a customer.

Heh. USA user here. Several of the apps that say they work I have been unable to get to work.

So anyone reading this, be aware your experience may differ.

I'm on a pixel 10 pro and have never been able to get some of banking apps to work, despite the list saying they should.

> Separate from this is wallet and payment apps which still have not had much traction on GrapheneOS.

Curve works in Europe and Paypal has a trial thing in Germany for tap to pay IIRC. There's nothing in the US unfortunately, yet.

> Bank app developers have been surprisingly receptive to making the changes, weirdly enough

That's only weird if you live in a perpetual state of doomerism, or have bene influenced by those who are (youtube influencers, mostly)

Of course there was a simple explanation for banking apps not working the whole time. It's the doomers who turned it into a vast conspiracy with an all-powerful megacorp at the center.

My banks (in Europe) work fine. The primary thing that is missing is tap-to-pay because Google is abusing its monopoly position and not letting GrapheneOS pass remote attestation. There are some apps that have their own tap-to-pay, such as Curve in most of Europe and PayPal in Germany, but they don't work great everywhere (e.g. where I live, all payment terminals accept tap-to-pay based on debit cards, but more than 50% does not accept credit card-based tap-to-pay, so something like Curve or Garmin Pay doesn't work in many stores).

At any rate, there is a well-maintained list here: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...

FWIW the financial institutions I use (all major US brokerages) have no issues with Google attestation, and if they implemented it I'd just move all my assets out to a different one.

I don't regularly use an actual bank account anymore, the cash management solutions from these brokerages work great and can do everything including direct deposit, payments, wire transfers, and ATM/debit cards, and have SIPC protection in place of FDIC.

Everything in Sweden I've tried works.